Women and Gender Studies
How to use this guide
This guide includes various tools to help with your research, including journal articles, videos, images, citations, and library services.
On the left side of the page is the page navigation that you can use to jump to different sections of the guide, and my contact information is included below. Please reach out if you need help with your research, and I'd be happy to help via email as well as through Zoom. To schedule a reference appointment for further help with your research, send me an email at mimmo@asu.edu.
Research databases
Depending on your topic, here are some of the best databases for getting started:
Interdisciplinary
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Academic Search Ultimate
Access to popular press magazines and peer-reviewed scholarly journals across various academic disciplines, including open-access journals and historic Associated Press videos.
Discipline Specific
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Contemporary Women's Issues (Gale OneFile)Full-text access to articles, gray literature, and alternative publications on women's issues from over 190 countries, covering topics such as civil rights, health, education, professional development, and entrepreneurship.Maximum concurrent users: 4
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Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson)
Indexes articles in the fields of archaeology and classical studies, film, folklore, gender studies, history, journalism, communications,language, literature, literary and political criticism, performing arts, philosophy, religion, etc.
Coverage: 2/1984+
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LGBTQ+ Source
The premier database for LGBTQ+ studies offers full-text scholarly and popular publications, primary sources, books, magazines, and newspapers, along with a specialized thesaurus featuring thousands of terms.
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Project MUSE Journals and Books
A collection of high-quality, peer-reviewed journals and e-books from leading university presses, not-for-profit publishers, and scholarly societies, offering full-text content in literature, history, arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, and economics.
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SocIndex with Full Text
Covers a wide spectrum of disciplines like gender studies, justice studies, economics, psychology, and social work, with a strong focus on sociology and its sub-disciplines. Primarily consists of journal articles, along with books, working papers, dissertations, and conference proceedings. It also features profiles of prolific authors.
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Sociological AbstractsCoverage: 1963+
Maximum Concurrent Users: Unlimited
Covers journal articles, conference papers, books, dissertations, and conference papers, book reviews related theoretical & applied sociology, social science, & policy science. Topics include sociological aspects of anthropology, gender studies, gerontology, family studies, health, racial interactions, social psychology, social work, urban studies, etc. -
Women's Studies International
Covers core research on women's and gender studies worldwide, including feminist theory, LGBTQ+ studies, and historical perspectives.
Other useful databases
Here is a list of selected databases that are also valuable for gender studies research:
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Alt-PressWatch
Access full-text articles from selected independent newspapers, magazines, and journals offering alternative perspectives on local, national, and international issues.
Coverage: 1970+
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Communication and Mass Media Complete (CMMC)
This database is a research and reference source in the fields of communication, journalism, and mass media. The database also covers some aspects of the field of advertising and related topics. The database indexes and abstracts journals and conference presentations.
Coverage: 1915+
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Ethnic NewsWatch
Ethnic NewsWatch offers articles from minority presses, including African American, Caribbean, Arab, Asian, European, Hispanic, Jewish, and Native American sources, with coverage starting from 1990.
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JSTOR
Access millions of articles, books, and primary sources, focusing on back issues of scholarly journals; an essential resource for research in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences. Includes AI assistant: JSTOR's interactive research tool.
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OECD Publications
Provides open access to global policy research, data, and analysis across topics like economics, education, environment, and development from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
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PAIS Index
Indexes global research on public policy and social issues, covering scholarly articles, books, government documents, grey literature, reports, and more. Content in multiple languages.
PAIS International (1976 to present) contains records for over half a million journal articles, books, government documents, statistical directories, grey literature, research reports, conference papers, web content, and more.
PAIS Archive (1915 to 1976) is a retrospective conversion of the PAIS Annual Cumulated Bulletin, volumes 1-62, published 1915-1976 and contains over 1.23 million records covering monographs, periodical articles, notes and announcements, and analytics.
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PsycINFO
Coverage: 1887+
Covers the research literature in all areas of psychology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. Other subjects such as neuroscience, psychiatry, and physiology are also included. The database provides indexing and abstracts for journal articles (mostly peer-reviewed), books, chapters, and dissertations. -
Social Services AbstractsCoverage: 1980+
Maximum Concurrent Users: Unlimited
This database covers current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including, but not limited to, welfare services, social education & practice, community & mental health services, poverty, homelessness, social & health policy, and welfare services. Included are abstracts of journal articles, dissertations, and citations to book reviews. -
Scopus
An abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, including journals, proceedings, and patents. It offers tools for citation analysis, research tracking, and collaboration. Includes AI assistant: Scopus AI, for enhanced research with natural language searches, summaries, and expert identification.
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Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000
Explores the history of women in social movements through primary sources, scholarly essays, and curated collections from colonial times to the modern era in the United States.
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Women and Social Movements, International
Primary sources on women's international activism from 1840 to today, covering reports, conference proceedings, and personal writings on topics like war, poverty, child labor, literacy, disease prevention, and women's rights.
Top journals
Google Scholar Metrics allows authors to view journal rankings and ratings by various h-indices. Journal ranking can be viewed for the top 100 publications in 9 different languages, or by broad subject research areas and numerous subcategories. Scholar Metrics uses those articles published between 2009 and 2013 and citations from all articles indexed in Google Scholar.
Top Publications in:
Newspaper articles
Ethnic NewsWatch - Full-text of ethnic, minority and native press newspapers, magazines and journals. Represents the diversity of the American population in ways that are not seen in the mainstream media.
Alt-PressWatch - Full text database of selected independent newspapers, magazines, and journals of the alternative press. Provides an alternative to mainstream media perspectives on local, national, and international issues.
Access World News - Access World News from NewsBank provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 500 international sources, each with its own distinctive focus offering diverse viewpoints on local, regional and world issues.
Arizona Republic - Includes full text of articles, editorials, notices, and obituaries from the Arizona Republic.
Nexis Uni - Full text of over 5,000 newspapers, trade publications, legal periodicals, and professional journals.
Proquest News & Newspapers - Metasearch of newspaper sources, including historical, regional, and contemporary.
Proquest Historical Newspapers: New York Times - Access to historical archive of New York Times and other historical newspapers. Good starting point for primary research.
Primary and archival material
These resources are freely available and openly licensed teaching, learning, and research materials.
Online encyclopedias
Here are a some of our specialized encylopedias that are available online:
- Encyclopedia of Feminist Theories
- Encyclopedia contains over 500 authoritative entries commissioned from an international team of contributors and includes clear, concise and provocative explanations of key themes and ideas.
- Handbook of Gender and Women's Studies
- Leading scholars discuss such topics as the state of women's and gender studies, feminist epistemology, cultural representations, globalization and the state, families, and work.
- Historical and Multicultural Encyclopedia of Women's Reproductive Rights in the United States
- For scholars and students interested in learning more about reproductive rights.
- Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender History in America
- Entry list includes more than 500 entry subjects. A wide spectrum of subject areas is covered: people; politics; culture and the arts; academic disciplines and fields; identities, communities, and cultures; etc..
- Encyclopedia of Women in the American West
- Captures the lives of more than 150 women who made their mark from the mid–1800s to the present, contextualizing their experiences and contributions to American society.